Your Grocery Bill Is Getting Higher

Did anyone happen to see this article about how the price of groceries is going up? I don't think this is terribly shocking information to anyone who regularly tracks their grocery spending, but I did find some of the specifics and forecasts interesting.

For example, food is projected to rise 4-5% this year, and another 2-3% next year. . .
Can I just say YIKES to a potential 8% rise in food costs over the next year? Holy smokes - that's a huge dent in any budget. And, it looks like beef (up 10% from last September) & produce have been impacted the most: "Fresh fruits and vegetables costs 7.6 percent more in September than a year earlier, while processed produce prices were up by 4 percent over that same period."

How will you adjust your grocery budget for 2012? Will you cut things out? Bake more snacks/breads at home? Cut down on produce or meat consumption?

I've been working on our 2012 budget, so this question is at the top of my mind. We don't buy too many snacks (Pirates Booty, Zbars for the kids before sports practices, the occasional bag of trail mix from Trader Joes, etc), but I will likely consider baking our own bread (learning how to successfully bake bread is going to be on my 2012 goal list after an utter failure in 2011 :-)). I've also started to cut out Crystal Light, both because I know it's artificial & not good for you, and because it's expensive. We've cut way down on our waste this year, so I need to keep that going & look for other creative ways to shave 10% percent off our bill in order to keep the dollar figure about the same as prices rise. . .